


downward spiral

by plantyourtreeswithme



Series: Terrifying Tolkien Week Fics [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, F/M, Insanity, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantyourtreeswithme/pseuds/plantyourtreeswithme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ferith is slowly descending into madness. And it's all because of the voice he keeps hearing in his head, ordering him to find a mysterious object that he doesn't know exists...</p>
            </blockquote>





	downward spiral

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for [Terrifying Tolkien Week](http://acefandomite.tumblr.com/post/125550431212/acornshields-official-tag-terrifying-tolkien)!

Ferith did not know what caused him to wake up in a sweat at four in the morning, but he thought it might have something to do with the voice in his head.

He had told none of them, he hadn’t dared; they would have thrown him off the pier and into the lake, leaving him to drown. The others knew that he couldn’t swim, and he had always been at a disadvantage because of that. He had never taken part in the competitions, the trials that determined whether you were a  _real_  man or a coward, the contests that governed your place in Laketown.

But it wasn’t Laketown or Esgaroth anymore, it was Dale. New Dale, even (which was what he had heard Deirdre and her friends calling it). He would have to start calling it that.

Ferith was nineteen when they crowned Bard as their king. He had fought in the battle, despite his mother’s and Deirdre’s protesting.

“What if you don’t come back?” Deirdre had said tearfully. “What’ll I do then?”

“Find someone better than me,” he told her, pushing a loose strand of hair out of her face.

“Impossible.”

He had laughed at that, and kissed her goodbye.

Miraculously, Ferith survived, bloodstained and much quieter than he had been before. The dwarf king and many of his brethren had died, and the other armies had suffered many losses, as well. Rumors flew around what remained of Esgaroth, saying that Oakenshield’s last words had been received by his hobbit companion (though some said that he was more than that), Baggins. Some said that the little creature had sobbed as if he had lost a lover, and nearly lost his voice afterwards.

Ferith had seen the two interacting during their brief stay in Laketown, and agreed with the rumors. It was hard to ignore such blatant, lovestruck glances. And there had been a  _lot_  of lovestruck glances.

 _How terrible for love to end as theirs did,_  he had thought, and had then made sure that he kissed Deirdre especially hard as soon as he came back.

Now he was twenty-six and sweating in his nightclothes like a child, Deirdre rubbing her eyes beside him. “Rith, what’s wrong?” she asked, yawning.

“I had a strange dream,” he told her, comforted by the hand that she pressed against his shoulder. They had been married for five years now, and had two little girls, Megga and Ada, sweethearts who had inherited their mother’s brown hair and inquisitive eyes. He and Deirdre sought out peaceful moments constantly now, most often at night, when the girls were asleep and they could talk, or sometimes just bask in each other’s silent company.

“What was it about?” Deirdre murmured, already falling asleep again.

“I don’t remember,” he said. Ferith didn’t know why he lied to her, but he did not regret it. The images - and the  _voice_  - were just too terrible to talk about…

 

* * *

 

He was twenty-seven and wiping something hot and sticky out of his eyes. When he looked in the mirror, he found a cut above his eyebrow, dripping blood down his face.

“Rith?”

Deirdre appeared at the doorway, Ada holding her hand. Their aprons were smeared with flour and dough - they had been baking earlier, a cake for Megga’s birthday.

“Ada, go play with Megga,” his wife said, immediately spotting the blood on his hands and nudging the toddler out of the room. As soon as Ada left, Deirdre strode forward, wiping at his forehead with her apron.

“What happened, Rith?” she asked, dabbing gently with the rough cloth.

“I fell on that,” Ferith said, pointing at the broken piece of glass on the floor. She looked doubtful, but didn’t press the subject.

“Go see Nordruil, he’ll get you fixed up.”

He stood and went to the door, muttering, “I hate dwarves.”

“No, you don’t,” Deirdre said, and he could hear the grin in her voice.

 

* * *

 

He was thirty and he had a jagged scar over his eye, giving him a ragged appearance. Megga told her friends that “her daddy had gotten it in the war,” but that wasn’t true. She hadn’t been old enough to remember the day that he had gotten it, her fourth birthday.

Not even Deirdre knew the real cause of his wound: a small whisper in his mind telling him to cut himself with the glass shard, and a gap in his memory that had led to his discovery of the injury.

 _I know your fears, Ferith,_  the voice had murmured, lustful and dark and somehow suffocating him.  _I know the way you feel about water, and about your family finding out about your cowardice. She doesn’t know, does she - your wife, that is. She doesn’t know that you fled from the battlefield, allowing your comrades to fall at the hand of the enemy in your stead..._

At that, Ferith had been seized by a sudden fit of lunacy, picking up the broken glass (he had accidentally smashed his mirror the day before) and attempting to literally cut the voice out of his own head. He had only made a small incision before suddenly realizing what he was doing, dropping the sharp fragment with a  _clink_ , and -

That was it. He had no memory of what happened afterwards. There was a strange gap of blankness, and a sudden jump to Deirdre helping him clean the cut and sending him off to the dwarven healer.

But that had been years ago. It was perfectly normal for his memory to be fading a bit, especially when he had two daughters and a son, Alduin, to worry about.

“Da, dinner’s ready.”

He looked up to find Megga standing beside him, her hand resting on the edge of his writing desk. She was eight now, her brown hair braided into two long plaits like her mother. It was acquiring a reddish tinge - probably from Deirdre’s father, a natural redhead if ever there was one - and looked auburn whenever she went outside to play.

“Thanks, Megga,” he said, smiling at her. “Go tell Ama I’ll be right there, okay?”

“Okay.”

She left, smoothing the folds of her skirt as she went, and Ferith clenched his fist in frustration, struggling to remember what he had strangely forgotten.

“Rith?” Deirdre called from the hallway. “There’s someone here to see you.”

He certainly wasn’t expecting to see the king before dinner.

Ferith was on friendly terms with Bard, but they hadn’t talked much since the Battle of the Five Armies (as the people of Dale were calling it). Once Bard had been chosen as their new king, they hardly saw each other; Ferith had gotten married and gotten a new job in the smithy, and Bard was, well, a  _king_.

“Ferith,” Bard greeted him cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder and smiling. He wore a thin silver circlet and a simple tunic - nothing particularly royal-looking, but not at all like the rags he had worn previous to his coronation.

“Sir,” Ferith greeted, nodding his head. It was a well-known policy of Bard’s that he wasn’t to be addressed as “your majesty” or “your highness”, and he refused to be bowed to, as well.

“May we step outside for a moment? It’s a rather nice day and I fancy a walk with company.”

“Of course,” he said, turning to Deirdre. “Save some dinner for me, won’t you?”

“Sure, Rith.”

The two of them left the house, pacing along the newly-rebuilt main deck of Laketown. Their boots thumped against the wooden boards as they walked, a sound that Ferith had been familiar with since childhood.

“Deirdre tells me you have taken ill,” Bard said as they walked.

Ferith stopped suddenly, surprised. “What do you mean? She has mentioned nothing of the sort to me. I don’t have a fever -”

“Not physically ill,” the king said, turning to face him with a frown. “Mentally.”

Ferith blinked. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean that your wife and numerous other townspeople are concerned for your mental stability and health,” Bard continued. “My guards and I have received reports of you acting not at all yourself, being unable to focus on or complete rudimentary tasks, and occasionally having conversations with yourself.”

He stared at the other man, trying to discern whether he was joking or not. “I don’t understand. If... if I were doing any of those things, I would have remembered.”

“You mean you have no recollection of any of these events?” Bard said, his tone suddenly different. His eyes were steely and locked onto Ferith’s, giving him the uncomfortable feeling that he was being closely examined.

“N-no, I believe I would know -”

He blinked again, and Bard recoiled as if struck. A horrified expression was on his face, as if he had just witnessed something gruesome and disgusting.

“What did you just say?”

“Sir?” Ferith said, confused. “I said that I would know if I had been -”

“No, after that.”

“Sir...?”

Bard swallowed, attempting to regain his composure. “You just said, _Ferith Gariksson is no more, and the search is afoot_. You don’t remember any of that?”

“No,” Ferith said feebly. “What... what search?”

The king was troubled, he could tell; but he said nothing more of the matter. “Get some rest, Ferith,” he said, “and take a week off of work. I think you need it.”

 

* * *

 

It had been two months and he was standing in a pile of jumbled objects strewn about the room, utterly bewildered at what had just happened.

“Ferith, what are you doing?”

He looked up to see Deirdre, disgruntled and staring at the mess that he had obviously made.

“I-I was looking for something, I think -”

He was surprised by the sudden surge of movement that she made, stepping forward and pressing her lips to his brow. Warm hands were pressed into his back, and he hesitantly returned her embrace.

“I worry about you, you know,” she whispered into his ear. “You’ve been acting strange lately. Even the kids are noticing.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t - I don’t know what’s happening, Deirdre...”

“Shh,” she said, probably knowing that he was on the verge of tears. “I know, Rith. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

He hoped that she was right.

 

* * *

 

It was a week later and he was in the bathroom, contemplating literally jumping into the toilet and letting himself sink to the bottom of the lake to sleep with fish.

“Don’t do it, Da,” Ada said from beside him.

“Don’t do what, sweetheart?” he asked, looking down at her.

“Don’t die.”

He nearly choked.

“What gave you that idea, Ada?” he said, his hands trembling.

“I just know,” she said simply, and turned around to have him tie her nightgown. He knotted the string tightly, trying to focus on the twine as he looped it into a bow.

“I won’t, Ada,” he vowed. “I won’t leave you, I promise.”

 

* * *

 

It was a year later and he broke his promise.

The voice had gotten worse, haunting him in his dreams and tormenting him with endless taunts and exaggerated descriptions of his failures.  _There are so many,_  it leered,  _and we have yet to cover them all. So many flaws, so many mistakes. I will not fail to list every single one until you find what I am looking for._

“I don’t even know what it is,” Ferith sometimes muttered, holding his head in his hands and wishing he could silence the whispering.

_Find it, useless man, or your family will pay for your dereliction. Your lovely Deirdre, your Megga, your Ada, your Alduin. They will all be killed - but you will live. You will have to live every day feeling the guilt, the agony of knowing that you killed your own family..._

That was the final straw. Ferith refused to allow his family to come to any harm on his behalf, at his hands or anyone else’s.

Deirdre screamed as he ran down the pier, tears running endlessly down her face. He did not dare look back, knowing that her tortured face would force him to stop and turn towards her.

Alduin was too young to understand what was happening, but he would know. The people of Dale would tell him how his father had been a coward, that he had fled rather than stay and fight in a legendary battle, that he had killed himself instead of sacrificing his family for a noble cause.

He leaped into the water with a splash, and immediately, he floundered, his instincts kicking in and forcing him to try and break the surface. But he had never learned to swim, thank Yavanna...

His lungs were burning, and Ferith was running out of air, but at least his torment would be over.

As his vision faded and he sunk down into the murky water, he heard the voice laughing hysterically, triumphant and gleeful... 


End file.
